Covalently bonded layered silicates/polyimide (BTDA-ODA) nanocomposites have been synthesized from γ-(aminopropyl)triethoxysilane (APTS) grafted kenyaite and poly(amic acid). The existence of covalent bonds between APTS and silicates and between APTS and the dianhydride end groups of the polymer have been confirmed by solid-state 13C and 29Si nuclear magnetic resonance and infrared spectroscopy, respectively. The thermal, mechanical, and moistureabsorption retardation properties of these nanocomposites were found to improve substantially over those of neat BTDA-ODA. In particular, a maximum increase of 36 °C in the degradation temperature and a maximum reduction of 54% in moisture absorption are displayed by these nanocomposites.

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Unlike the well-defined long-range periodic order that characterizes crystals, so far the inherent atomic packing mode in glassy solids remains mysterious. Based on molecular dynamics simulations, here we find medium-range atomic packing orders in metallic glasses, which are hidden in the diffraction data in terms of structure factors or pair correlation functions. The analysis of the hidden orders in various metallic glasses indicates that the glassy and crystalline solids share a nontrivial structural homology in short-to-medium range, and the hidden orders are formulated by inheriting partial crystalline orders during glass formation. As the number of chemical components increases, more hidden orders are often developed in a metallic glass and entangled topologically. We use this phenomenon to explain the geometric frustration in glass formation and the glass-forming ability of metallic alloys.

The dynamics of glass-forming systems shows a multitude of features that are absent in normal liquids, such as non-exponential relaxation and a strong temperature-dependence of the relaxation time. Connecting these dynamic properties to the microscopic structure of the system is challenging because of the presence of the structural disorder. Here we use computer simulations of a metallic glass-former to establish such a connection. By probing the temperature and wave-vector dependence of the intermediate scattering function we find that the relaxation dynamics of the glassy melt is directly related to the local arrangement of icosahedral structures: Isolated icosahedra give rise to a liquid-like stretched exponential relaxation whereas clusters of icosahedra lead to a compressed exponential relaxation that is reminiscent to the one found in a solid. Our results show that in metallic glass-formers these two types of relaxation processes can coexist and give rise to a dynamics that is surprisingly complex.